distance between two points
by AndAwayWeGo
Summary: 'And that's how she came to be sitting on the couch with a very inebriated Rachel who, at some point, had changed the topic from the play to getting Quinn to sleep with her.' Faberry.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. You'd know if I did. Trust me.

**Pairing(s): **Faberry is the main thing, but, since this is season three, there's going to Brittana and, yes, some Finchel.

**Spoilers: **Through season three, but it's all stuff that should be common knowledge by now.

**A/N: **This is a story I've been struggling to get out for a while, now. I'm not sure how many chapters there will be, but it starts after the end of _On My Way_ and the flashbacks go as far back as _The First Time_. This will switch from post-Quinn's accident to before it, so make sure you pay attention to the dates.

Be sure to let me know what you think.

….

_distance between two points_

…_._

"_Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances."_

_-_-Robert Hass

….

...

_February 25__th__, 2012_

..

The cold, February air surges through the shattered window to her left, though she doesn't feel it so much as know that it's there. Through the crooked fractures winding just in front of her she watches the barren, brown trees dance to the tune of the wind as they dangle over the bright, blue abyss of the sky. Her mind is full of splinters, but she's able to decide that their empty beauty is much more pleasurable from her current angle. Somewhere nearby she hears the sound of a car door, a shocked gasp that's immediately followed by a confused shout and then hurried footsteps against the pavement—the occasional crunch of glass under shoes.

She doesn't think about this, though. Instead, she thinks about the melting snow and waving trees—the birds returning and brides in white dresses.

She hopes that she does not have to die.

The evening is too beautiful for an event like that; she thinks she doesn't want to miss a moment of it. But she also knows that it's only this beautiful because of the shards of glass peppering her face and neck, because of the sound her head had made when it collided with the steering wheel—the irreparably crushed cell phone slicing into the clenched skin of her right hand.

She is young, no matter which way you look at it; eighteen and a few months from graduating. It hadn't even been that long since she'd decided that her life was even worth living. She knows that it is—that it was just a few minutes ago when she'd been driving down the road, a few days ago when she'd heard those beautiful words at long last. Back when she hadn't been thinking about dying. She'd thought that the only decent way to go on living was to let go for once.

Based on the way that her seatbelt is the only thing keeping her head from slamming into the roof of her car, she wagers that she must have been wrong.

And she'd been on her way to coping.

"Hey, hey!" she hears from somewhere to the right. "Hello?" A face appears in the hole of her window but it's at the wrong angle and she can't really turn her head anyway. "Are you okay? Can you move at all?"

She tries to say that, no, she can't move, but it comes out as the sound of an animal struggling for air.

"Okay, okay," the upside-down face tells her. "Help is on the way, okay, honey? You're gonna be just fine, alright?"

She wonders if he's asking her or telling her and decides it doesn't matter either way.

Her neck responds enough to twist her head and the face smiles, worried and restrained at her effort. Whoever it is outside her window is blurry and she wonders, for a moment, if it's because the wind is trying to blow him away.

His features are lined with age and his dark, grey eyebrows are low over his eyes. She thinks he may be crying but she's not entirely positive—mostly because it feels as though every inch of her body is on fire.

She wants to tell him who she is, the things she's gone through. 'I have a daughter,' she'd say, 'I'm going to Yale.' She'd tell him about everything. She'd tell him that, even though she's made mistakes, there are people out there that love her, dearly—or at least claim to. But she'd also tell him about her chest, how it's practically collateral damage because her heart exploded and how she really doesn't have a whole lot to live for.

She'd tell him that she was on her way to stop a wedding.

She can hear the loud, whirring sirens growing closer. She coughs and a horrifying amount of blood comes out. Her head tips up with the last few bursts of air that force out of her throat and she watches as her white cardigan is sprinkled with bright red dots.

The man just beside her looks absolutely heartbroken. 'That makes two of us,' she wants to say, but can't and doesn't.

"Just hang on, hon. They're almost here. You're gonna be okay." He's saying it to fill the silence, to cover up the sound of her broken body lighting itself on fire.

The sirens stop and her vision blurs. Shouts and orders ring out, pushed forward by the tempo of footsteps, the slam of doors. She thinks of music and she thinks of dancing. There's noise all around her and questions she can't understand, let alone answer.

They stop speaking to her and talk only to each other, to the man from before. She suffers in silence, trying to remember if she's ever had this much difficulty breathing before. She's not exactly sure how much time passes, but it must have been a few minutes because she's being pulled from the car—"Careful. Don't jostle her. Her back—"—and set somewhere cold and sturdy. She can't see much—her vision swims—and she's on her side and something stabs into her lower back.

Someone cradling her head and brushing hair from her face shushes her and she's able to understand that she's whimpering. She knows she is dizzy only because this cannot be happening.

Whatever she's lying on rises into the air slowly and it only makes everything, the pain, more real—she compares the rigid straps securing her to the stretcher to the warm arms from just a couple hours ago.

There's a woman swimming above her and she blinks, tries to make out her face.

"Honey, we're gonna move you to the ambulance, okay?" the woman says, "What's your name, sweetie?"

She coughs again and the woman wipes some of the blood from her chin with something white and soft. "L-l—" She bites her lip as a shock of pain travels up her spine and across her ribs. "Lucy," she manages, finally.

"Okay, Lucy. You're gonna be just fine."

This is not a promise, she knows. It's fabrication. She nods and feels herself being enveloped by the ambulance just before her vision is devoured by black.

…

_November 9__th__, 2011_

..

"You should be my first," Rachel slurs into her ear indifferently, like she's been planning on saying it all this time. Quinn sighs and resists the urge to look at her, mostly because, every so often it gets annoying—her being so heedless about everything, even the status of her virginity. "Finn would just mess it up."

"How so?"

"He's just…he's so…_Finn._ He lacks passion."

Quinn smiles at this, even though it's not a very nice thing for her to say. She has a point, actually. He can sing, he can listen (or at least pretend to) and he can act, but Finn is not passionate in the slightest. And, okay, so she can see where Rachel's coming from—if she's trying to gain "sexual awakening" (or whatever uncomfortable phrase she'd used during her emergency meeting the other day)—then Finn is probably going to be the last person to do said awakening. What Quinn doesn't understand, though, is why she's coming to _her, _of all people, to help her with this problem.

"You don't."

"I don't what?" Quinn asks, turning her head to look at the other girl.

"Lack passion."

She's not sure what else there is to say other than, "Thanks."

"S'true."

"Okay."

"Is that a yes?"

"A yes to what?" She know what Rachel's asking, but she's hoping to throw her off her scent. Maybe if Rachel thinks she's not completely absorbed in the conversation, she won't continue to ask something of such great magnitude of her.

A sigh, loud and long, is released from between Rachel's parted lips and she looks absolutely exhausted from the mere task of speaking to her. "To sleeping with me."

"Oh."

"Snip, snap, lil' missy. I ain't got the entire evening."

If it sounds like she's drunk, it's because she is. But, in fairness, this _is _a Noah Puckerman party and one of the only reasons why people even come to these things is because of the abundance of alcohol he manages to obtain. His parties are sporadic and loud, oftentimes landing on a lazy Saturday night, or even the occasional weeknight. Take tonight, for example—it's ten o'clock on Wednesday and there's school tomorrow. Yet, his house, as always, is practically being shaken off its foundation by the music pumping through the walls, floors, and bodies all around the living room, kitchen, and dining room. Leave it to him to come up with the idea for a Pre-Final Dress Rehearsal party that absolutely everyone who's anyone attends, despite it being a school night.

To be honest, Quinn's not entirely sure why she's there. It isn't as if she's ever been to a party like this one that she's ended up enjoying. And, no, she hadn't believed him when he'd said it would just be a "small get-together," yet she'd come anyway.

Rachel had been in the kitchen with the host when she'd arrived, already swaying unsteadily on her feet and looking like she was seconds away from vomiting. Noah's arm was around her waist to keep her from tipping herself onto the floor and he was whispering something into her ear that was making her giggle. It was odd, seeing them that way, and—despite not really liking the boy—Quinn had to wonder where Finn was.

"Where's Finn?" she'd asked them, after denying the handful of drinks Noah had tried to hand her.

Rachel had shrugged. "Who cares?" she asked, making Noah throw his head back and laugh.

"You should," she didn't say, and she bit her tongue, offering to take Rachel off Puck's hands.

He'd agreed, passing her over to you and leaving the room with the excuse that he needed to be a "good host"—which she thinks must have been code for; find a drunken cheerleader to seduce.

And that's how she came to be sitting on the couch with a very inebriated Rachel who, at some point, had changed the topic from the play to getting Quinn to sleep with her. She's not really sure where this is coming from, so she feigns nonchalance—chalks it up to Rachel being drunk and tries not to read too much into the situation. If she's being completely honest with herself, she's wanted to hear Rachel say words like these for months—years, actually—but she doesn't say that. Instead, she reaches out and takes Rachel's plastic cup, setting it on the table beside the couch.

"I think you've had enough to drink for now," she says.

Rachel squints a little, trying to find the other girl in the dim lighting the loud, crowded room provides. "I don't agree with that there statement."

Quinn has to laugh a little at her word choice, wondering why she becomes southern when she's drunk.

"Don't laugh at me like that, Fabray," Rachel orders, swatting her arm. "It's hurtful."

"I'm not laughing at you, Rachel." She sticks her tongue out. "Fine. Don't believe me."

Rachel's silent for a while, just leaning into Quinn's side a little, and Quinn look around the room. There are people all over the place, drinking, laughing, dancing, making out in the darkest corners. Most of them are drunk and almost none of them are in the cast of the play. They're probably only there because of alcohol and a lack of anything better to do.

Quinn stops looking around when she feels her someone playing with her hair. Frowning, she turns her head to look over at Rachel with one eyebrow arched. "What are you doing?" she asks and Rachel shakes her head, not meeting Quinn's eyes.

"I don't want Finn to take my virginity, Quinn…" she whispers, so softly that Quinn almost doesn't hear her.

Quinn's frown grows and she reaches out, grab her hand to get her attention. "Hey," she says, using her free hand to tilt Rachel's head up. "No one's making you sleep with Finn, Rachel. It's entirely up to you."

She wrenches her hand away and casts her eyes to the floor. "It's just…stupid Tina…and her stupid, 'my first love,' shit." Quinn makes a face at the sound of her cursing—she's certainly not used to it—but nods in understanding. "And I started thinking, you know, Finn's not my first love."

She doesn't elaborate and Quinn's so, so glad for it. She has all of these emotions trying to claw their way out of her and she doesn't think that she'd be able to continue biting her tongue if Rachel kept up with that train of thought.

She says, "I love him. But he's not," and Quinn hopes that's the end of that.

The thing is, she actually feels sorry for Finn. He really does mean well—most of the time—even if he doesn't always go about it the way he probably should. He does love Rachel and he wants the best for her, even if it's in the context of what's best for _him. _She's sure he wants this with Rachel, that bond of intimacy, but she also knows that, if Rachel doesn't think he's her first love, if she's having second thoughts about such a huge decision, then she shouldn't go through with it. Quinn doesn't have anything against Finn, but she cares more for Rachel's best interest than for his. It's nothing personal—she gets along with him just fine so long as she doesn't have to spend any time with him—but she meant it when she told the other girl to wait.

"Okay," she says, at a loss for anything better.

Rachel rests her head on the blonde's shoulder for the next twenty minutes or so, and when Quinn asks if she wants you to drive her home, her nod is a little eager and a little sad.

After making sure she's safe in bed, carefully dodging creaky floorboards in the hope that her fathers won't wake up, Quinn gets back into her car and starts for home.

She wants to forget about it, clear her head, as she lies in bed, but it's impossible because she's still thinking about how close Rachel had been earlier, how sure she'd seemed when she'd asked her the impossible.

She barely gets any sleep.

…


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. You'd know if I did. Trust me.

**Pairing(s): **Faberry is the main thing, but, since this is season three, there's going to Brittana and, yes, some Finchel.

**Spoilers: **Through season three, but it's all stuff that should be common knowledge by now.

**A/N: **Thank you so much for all the feedback! It means a lot. Here's the second installment. I'll try to update weekly.

Be sure to tell me what you think.

…

_February 25__th__, 2012_

..

Santana's ringtone is 'Barbie Girl.' It would be funny if it weren't so inappropriate as it starts up, bouncing off the walls of the court house waiting room, breaking up the anxious silence of those around her. If possible, they get even more quiet—Finn stops pacing, Tina stops chewing on her nails, Sue stops her constant sighing—and they all watch as she glares at them, flips open her phone and answers.

Her mouth forms, "Hello?" and it isn't until her face absolutely collapses a few seconds later that they realize why they were all watching her in the first place, why the call was so important.

"No, dad…I mean—" Her eyes are glimmering and it's like everyone leans forward, trying to discover why. "—um…okay. Is Judy…? Yeah…okay." She hangs up and just stares at the floor with shock all over her face.

"What's wrong?" Brittany rubs her arm, gently, drawing her out of herself.

Santana clears her throat and there's this deafening moment of absolute silence before she shatters it with, "Quinn…s-she was in an accident. A bad one."

Rachel has never been shot, but she imagines that it's a lot like this;

It's quiet. Loud at first—the fireworks of Santana's words. Then silent as the fire of pain catches up.

There's motion in the room, people surging forward to collect information. They were prepared for a wedding, she knows, not a funeral. Things have gone wrong for all of them.

When she looks down, everything is diagonal. Her phone is on the tile floor now and she thinks, "That doesn't belong there."

Someone picks it up—one of her dads, maybe—and someone else ushers her outside. Her legs move automatically, like breathing and blinking, a thoughtless function. She's in a car, then, and the door slams, heavy—a vibration in her utterly distant world and nothing more.

She understands what led up to this—the engagement ring; "You…can't,"; "Yes, I'll marry you,"; rushing to get it over with; _On my way_; the explosive flurry of potential loss.

It feels like she's on fire, burning from her chest to her fingertips and back again.

They're at the hospital now, the waiting room, and she sits down on a stiff chair in her white wedding dress.

It's a hole in her chest where the bullet went in—a fathomless, abyss. Like all of her memories (Quinn's fingers and lips and I love you, Rachel) and all those things she wanted and everything she is and was going to become are draining out of this hole, this wound she can't close.

She tries to remember how to pray.

…

_November 10__th__, 2011_

..

She almost doesn't go. In fact, she sits on her bed for a good forty-five minutes after she gets home from the final dress rehearsal, weighing the pros and cons in her head. Her fathers flit in and out of her room, asking her if she needs anything, how she did, and isn't she excited about opening night tomorrow?

She tells them that she is, but, really, she's more than nervous. It's not as if she is wary about her lines or her songs or about stage directions, no. She's got that down flat—probably since the second week of rehearsal, if she's being honest. It's just that she can't completely become Maria yet, and that feels like something that is so, so necessary in order to do the show justice. They're too different from one another, still. One is experienced, certain about her choices, and completely and utterly devoted to the love of her life.

Rachel, on the other hand, is dating someone who could list off the things he doesn't like about her for more than an hour, probably. And, in her spare time, she's staring longingly at someone who used to shove her into lockers and call her hurtful things just because they happened to be near one another.

She sighs and runs a hand through her hair, still wavy from having been pulled up in the final act. Her head is still pounding a little bit and she knows it's because of last night, which she remembers every detail of with shocking clarity.

Quinn had turned down her offer and she tells herself it's because she was simply caught off guard. Maybe if she tried again…

But, she's dating Finn. She loves Finn. Maybe she's not _in love _with Finn like she used to think she was, but she does care about him. But she knows that he can't take her to the level of performing capability she needs to be at.

(It's more than that; she ignores it again)

She hears footsteps in the hallway outside of her room, and, having made her decision, she hurries to grab her phone from the bed and pretend to be looking at a text message.

"Hey, sweetie," Leroy says. Hiram leans against the doorframe.

"Hey," she says, sounding purposefully absent.

"What's wrong?"

"Um…it's Kurt—" She pretends to be typing. "—he's freaking out a bit about tomorrow."

"Oh." She glances up and they look perturbed at this.

"Actually, would it be okay if I ran over there real fast? I know, it's late, just…" She pauses. "Never mind. I'll just call him."

She watches her fathers share a look out of the corner of her eye.

"Um…actually, hon, if your friend needs you—" Hiram starts.

"As long as you're safe," Leroy throws in.

"—you can run over there, quick like a bunny. Just be careful."

She feigns shock. "Are you sure?"

"Of course."

"Absolutely."  
"Okay, um…I'll be quick."

She gets up and pulls a jacket on over her dress from earlier on today. "Thank you." She leans up and kisses them both on cheek and then rushes down the stairs and out the door before they can stop her.

She doesn't really have a plan until she's sitting in her parked car in the Fabray's driveway. The house looms over her, with only a couple of the lights on—enough, she thinks, to assure that at someone is awake. Tentatively, she pulls the key out of the ignition, slips it into her coat pocket and gets out of her car.

The walk to the front door is the slowest she's ever moved, the sound of her knuckles on the elegant wood of the front door loud and thunderous—she's certain it's woken up everyone on the block.

She waits.

No one comes to the door, but she doesn't knock again.

It's several agonizing moments later that she turns to go.

"What were you thinking, Rachel?" she mumbles under her breath as she walks down the porch steps and towards her car. "Stupid, stupid, _stupid_."

The sound of the door swinging open behind her and the subsequent beam of light that flows out of it and over her shadowed form stops her dead in her tracks. Her legs are suddenly heavy and she can't lift them. In the seconds before a voice rings out, she wonders if she can make a run for it, pretend this never happened and go back home, call her boyfriend get back to her life.

Then she hears, "Rachel?" and has no choice but to turn around.

Quinn is standing in the doorway in running shorts and a t-shirt, her cell phone pressed against her shoulder in a way that makes Rachel think she must be in the middle of a call.

Rachel knows that she can't go back to her life now and this girl is the reason why. There's nervous, comforting certainty in the smile that tilted on her face—the one Rachel can barely see in the dim lighting. Her stomach twists in a way that's unfamiliar and the weight of her legs evaporates. She's being drawn forward, towards Quinn, just like she always (never) has been before.

Quinn waves her forward with her free hand, pulling Rachel in.

The door closes behind her as she steps into the house and Quinn's saying, "Hey, Sam, um…I'll call you back, okay?" just before she hangs up and tosses her phone onto the table by the door.

"Hi," Rachel says.

Quinn looks at her uncertainly. Her fingers open and close at her side.

"Hey."

It's the first thing that Quinn's said to her all day. They hadn't so much as looked at each other unless they'd had to during the dress rehearsal, but, now they're standing in front of each other and averting their eyes.

What she doesn't know is that Quinn, as always, is immediately chagrined by her presence, as per usual—not because she's woefully pregnant, terrifyingly broken, or brazenly unstable with hair dyed the color of Pepto Bismol, though—but because the conversation from last night is still hovering in the air around them, seeping into their movements and gestures and every breathe they breath.

For some reason, Rachel thought everything would unfurl exactly like she wanted it to as soon as she arrived—that this would be easy. It isn't and her heart is pounding in her ears and she thinks this must be what stage fright feels like.

"I apologize for the late hour," she ends up saying to fill the silence. "I just…I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh." Quinn draws the sound out—their eyes meet and then jerk away. "It's fine."

Rachel can feel that their alone, but she asks, "Is your mom home?" anyway.

"Um. No." Quinn shakes her head a lot. She bites her lip, looks at a painting on the wall. "No…she's…she'll be back tomorrow. Business."

Of course her mom has disappeared to that magical place where parents go whenever their teenagers are about to get into trouble somehow—probably the same place Noah Puckerman's mother disappears to ever other weekend.

Rachel sighs.

Perfect.

"That's just as well, considering the topic of conversation." She says it to get the ball rolling, but her voice is quiet and more than a little unsure. "We need to talk."

"About what?"

She's avoiding the conversation. Quite obviously, Rachel thinks.

She gives Quinn a look that she hopes conveys how much business she actually means and says, "You know what." Her words have a different tone than her posture, though, because her, "_Please_, Quinn," that escapes through her parted lips a few seconds later is urgent and quiet.

Quinn takes a deep breath, crosses her arms over her stomach and waits for her to go on.

"Have you considered my proposition?" She sounds more sure of herself now, confident—inside she's reeling and fighting and it feels a bit like all of these emotions she can't quiet place are about to absolutely destroy her because of her unwillingness to place a name on them.

Quinn looks at her and their eyes finally catch and she holds the gaze. She licks her lips, then chews on her bottom lip for a few seconds. When she finally speaks, her voice is low and intimate and a little raspy. "Yes."

"And?"

"And I don't know, Rachel."

She's not surprised, but she asks, "Why?"  
"Why what?" is Quinn's return and Rachel thinks maybe this is a sign she should just leave.

She takes a step closer. Quinn looks away, but Rachel can feel it—the sparkling wires of her fingertips and the hairs on her arms rising in anticipation of the space invasion. "Why don't you know?"

Quinn shakes her head.

If she's being honest with herself, she wishes Quinn would just kiss her already and be done with it. Ever since this idea entered her head a few weeks ago—hell, a few _months _ago, since we're talking in terms of honesty—she's wanted nothing more than for feelings for someone else to completely obliterate everything having to do with Finn. Maybe that's not fair, but she's just so exhausted from being this person; this co-dependent, mostly obnoxious, innocently egotistic teenage girl who is clinging to her only life raft. She's none of these things, even if that's how others see them. She wonders what the people who judge her on a daily basis would think if they saw her like this—standing, late at night, in the home of someone-she's-not-dating's house, wishing that the girl in front of her would hurry up and sleep with her.

They'd know then how unreliable and masochistically delusional she is—how she doesn't really have everything planned out after all.

Quinn doesn't say anything else and Rachel stands just in front of her hoping she would. The moment is gone, though the electricity remains. She knows that the harsh glow of the lamp beside them has ruined everything.

"Was that Sam Evans you were talking to earlier?" she asks, because she'd like to think she knows when to stop betting on a dead horse.

Quinn quirks an eyebrow at her, like she's hiding her shock at how close they are now. Rachel's only a few inches away, not even a foot, now. "Yeah…we, um…we keep in touch."  
"That's nice."

"Yeah."

"If you don't mind my asking, what were you two talking about?"

Quinn swallows. "He was trying to keep me from doing something stupid." Her voice is breathy.

Rachel's eyes flicker between Quinn's eyes and lips and, even though she's not really sure what else is happening, she's aware that they're drawing even closer to one another. "Like what?"

"Like sleeping with you," Quinn says, and Rachel can't stop herself—doesn't _try_—from grabbing Quinn's hand and running her thumb over the skin of her palm. "Rachel—" She starts, but doesn't finish.

They're so close, still, and Rachel brings her hand up, cups Quinn's cheek and runs her thumb over her cheekbone, across her lips. She is distantly aware of everything becoming foggy and lost and that, despite this, she can still see Quinn so clearly, the two of them humming with electricity. She says, "Quinn," and, when their lips meet, her own open at once, stepping into the blonde's arms and standing on her tiptoes to reach her better. Bodies pressed flush against one another; they slide together like puzzle pieces. Rachel's hands disappear and Quinn feels them in her hair as she's tugged even closer. Their tongues battle, not for dominance, but for assurance that this was always going to happen eventually.

She doesn't know that Quinn wants to tell her about her own issues—that she misses her daughter more than anything; that she's so lonely it hurts a lot of the time; that she's so _sick _of being associated with cheating of any kind; that she's in love with her. She doesn't know that Quinn only refrains from saying these things because she's so afraid of the consequences.

So when Quinn says, "We really shouldn't," instead of those things—once they pull away for air, linger in one another's space, lips brushing just the tiniest bit—Rachel says, "I know," with her eyes still closed, despite the fact that she doesn't.

"You're dating Finn."  
Her eyes open and she nods. "I know." But then they're kissing again, like they were born to do so, and her fingers toy with the hem of Quinn's t-shirt before sliding them underneath the fabric, passing the heat from her palms into Quinn's stomach and moving upwards.

.

It goes like this;

You're standing in the foyer of your empty house, kissing this girl you never really planned on kissing, but if you had, this would be better than you ever would have or could have imagined. She moves against you in ways you never thought of before. There's a mixture of want and need in you, of curiosity being sated and of everything coming together in ways you never even considered, coursing through your veins like a volcano about to erupt.

This is why you don't think about your boyfriend—her own ex-boyfriend. You don't wonder if she ever moved against him (or _Puck_) like this and you don't worry about the fact that you're cheating on him right now, right this very second, and that she's helping you. For the first time since you can remember, you aren't worrying about the impact your actions will have on your life—the difficulty you'll inevitably go through in order to reconcile with this.

With all of this going on—with the way she's trailing her nails up and down your lower back—it's not really surprising that you don't want to stop.

.

The next time they pull apart, Rachel grabs Quinn's hands and leads her up the stairs to her bedroom. They manage to make it all the way to the top of the stairs before Quinn presses her against the wall and kisses her.

Her hands drift down Rachel's hips, down to her thighs, and back up again, but under the skirt of her dress this time. Rachel moans, vibrating Quinn's lips, teeth, tongue, and head until she's pulling her forward by the back of her neck and kissing her harder and harder.

"Bedroom," Rachel whispers against her skin and Quinn nods to the door beside them. Rachel tugs her back into it by the hips and closes the door behind them.

Quinn's lips find her neck as soon as they're inside and she kisses the stretched, tight skin of her throat. She bites down gently and Rachel breathes her name softly.

There's a moment of hesitation, then, and Rachel knows that Quinn is suddenly unsure of what they're doing. "Rachel, I—"

Rachel shakes her head, cutting her off. She doesn't speak, pushing Quinn backwards onto her bed instead and it's like Quinn can't even move as Rachel unclasps her dress. There's the sound of a zipper and then she's standing there, blushing and smiling shyly as blue fabric pools around her feet as she kicks off her shoes.

"I'm sure, Quinn," she says, finally, and she means it. Part of her thinks that this isn't about a stupid play anymore, that it never was; she pushes it down.

She nods. "Okay."

They turn the lights off so that the only light exposing them to each other is the unfaithful light of the moon. Rachel is nervous at first and then Quinn carefully removes the remaining garments from her body, her eyes wide and full of wonder at the new expanse of skin she finds her fingers trailing over and suddenly she isn't anymore. Quinn sees all of her, as much as she can with as little light as they're being given, and she whispers, "You're beautiful," into the space between them and Rachel's never felt more desired.

This is what she wanted—what Finn never could have accomplished unaided.

And Quinn touches her like she might break, fingers carefully exploring, tenderly pushing the boundaries. It's a touch that has no more idea if this is the only time—if there will be more—than they do.

Quinn's mouth finds hers after that and Rachel cradles her face, holds her there and tries to pretend that this is her life and not just something she begged her way into.

They move slowly until Rachel tells her not to—"_Faster_," she breathes into Quinn's ear—and then they're both desperate, clinging to each other. It's simultaneously everything Rachel hoped for and nothing she expected; it hurts a little at first, but not after a few moments and her name rolls out of Quinn's mouth, ragged like her breath, and Rachel's fingernails dig into her back.

Rachel whispers her name right back, quietly into mussed, blond hair. Quinn pulls her head back, looks down at the other girl, propping herself up on the hand that's not busy. Her pace slows and Rachel's fingers trail down her cheek, her neck, to her stomach. Their eyes remained locked and it hits Rachel like she's been struck by a train that this must have been what Tina was talking about. It hits her that this is it, the last moments before everything changes—before the world bursts into color and everything is different. She prays that Quinn is wrong, that this won't complicate everything, because Quinn moves against her like they're made for each other and this is so much that she never thought it would be.

Deflowered by Quinn Fabray (head cheerleader, former personal tormentor) on a school night.

But what a way to go.

They unwind slowly, raw and aching, until they're completely unraveled.

It's silent after that besides the labored breathing coming from the both of them and the lack of words make everything seem muffled, pressurized, like they're changing altitudes.

"Is that what you wanted?" Quinn asks, the bare skin of their shoulders brushing.

_No, no, no, _Rachel almost says because the answer is, 'Yes,' but not in the context of asking someone for a favor.

There's more silence, more blocked sounds and internal popping like they're going higher into the sky, and then Rachel reaches out, finds Quinn's thigh with her hand and presses her thumb into the skin she finds there. Then, "Yes."

.

She sits up, pushing back the comforter and bunched sheets as she does. Her eyes find the clock on the nightstand just on the other side of the bed and she frowns. It's later than she'd intended to be leaving.

She pushes the blankets off completely and looks around the darkness covering where the floor is for a sign of her underwear. Movement on the other side of the bed stops her, though, and she resists the urge to turn around.

"Rach…it's late…Just stay."

She hesitates for a moment, then turns and looks at her, with her eyes heavy with sleep, lips swollen and red, sheet draped across her hips and her blond hair all over the place. "Okay." She nods. "I'll be right back."

She gets up and crosses the room, rifling through Quinn's drawers until she comes across a large t-shirt, which she throws on. She leaves the bedroom, going back down to the foyer where she left her bag, retrieves her cell phone and goes back upstairs, into the bathroom to call her dads.

Leroy answers on the fourth ring and she says something about Carol Hummel being worried about her driving home this late. He's tired and his voice is groggy so he doesn't question her, just tells her that he loves her and that he'll see her in the morning. When she hangs up, she reads the handful of messages from Finn that she'd gotten and ignored in the time since she'd arrived at the Fabray's.

It's late, but he's probably still up playing one violent video game or the other, so she responds to his, "_u were awesome 2nite, babe. luv u. wish i could be there 2morro," _with an, "_I love you, too,_" and then she leans over the toilet and dry heaves for a good two minutes because the shirt she's wearing smells like Quinn and she can still feel the other girls fingers all over her body.

The most surprising part is that she feels guiltier over lying to her father than she does about sleeping with someone who isn't her boyfriend. She doesn't regret what she's done right now—she thinks there's a possibility that she will at some later point in time—and she doesn't regret Quinn, but there's something else, something that's a deep, sharp pain in her chest that makes it hard to breathe as she gets to her feet and runs a hand through her hair.

"Rachel?"

She looks up and Quinn's in the doorway. She's dressed now, with another of her large t-shirts bagging over her frame as the exhaustion in her eyes is replaced with worry. "Are you okay?" she asks quietly, like she's trying not to startle the other girl.

Rachel simply nods, smiles a little.

"M'kay. Let's go back to bed." Quinn reaches out a hand to her and Rachel takes it without hesitation, allows herself to be pulled back into the bedroom.

She climbs into the bed and lets Quinn hold her, closing her eyes as Quinn's heart beats against her ear. Quinn is soft and warm and she whispers, "Goodnight, Rachel," groggily as her breathing evens out.

Rachel lies awake for a few minutes, content to just lie there in Quinn's arms, before she, too, falls asleep.

In her unconscious state, she releases a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding while awake.


End file.
